text: During the 1980s, the center came to the attention of Arnold Orville Beckman. The Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation provided a $2 million challenge grant in 1986 to stimulate expansion of the center as a research institute, the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry (BCHOC).
  Beckman challenged the center to define its mission more broadly, reaching out to academic, professional and trade organizations, and including biochemistry, materials science, petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals and instrumentation within its mandate. The National Foundation for History of Chemistry was established in 1987 as a supporting Pennsylvania nonprofit.  The renamed Beckman Center began a major capital campaign, listing as its needs "offices, an exhibit gallery, a reading room, library stacks, and archives and storage areas." It celebrated its inauguration on November 5, 1987.  With support from the American Chemical Society's "Campaign for Chemistry", the center was able to move to 3401 Walnut Street, on the University of Pennsylvania campus, as of March 9, 1988.